David James: Creator of the Gold List Method
Kris Broholm interviews David James, creator of the Gold List Method, live from the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin. They discuss David's language learning journey and how he developed his unique Gold List technique. The conversation also explores his early inspirations.
June 1, 2016 · 1 hr 59 min
EP 97: David James: Creator of the Gold List Method
0:00 / 1:59:14
Guest
David James
What You'll Hear
- 1 Podcast Intro: Meet Language Legend David James
- 2 Early Language Journey: Eurovision to Stamp Words
- 3 School Days: Naughty Latin, Self-Learning German
- 4 Cold War Russian: Unexpected Olympic Inspiration
- 5 Coursebooks: The Dumbing Down of Language Materials
- 6 Vocabulary Wins: Why Grammar Takes a Backseat
- 7 Audio First: Develop Your Inner Language Voice
- 8 Final Thoughts with Goldlist Method Creator
Questions Covered in the Show
What motivated David James to start learning languages?- 8m
What inspired David James to learn Russian?- 25m
How do old and new 'Teach Yourself' language textbooks differ?- 40m
Is grammar or vocabulary more important for language comprehension?- 1h 15m
How can one determine the Cyrillic transliteration conventions for foreign place names?- 1h 30m
What is audio front-loading in language learning?- 1h 40m
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Hello everyone and welcome to another Actual Fluency podcast, and today I'm bringing you my talk with David James from the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin that was recently held at the A&O Hostel, the good old faithful A&O Hostel. And, um, just before I put on the today's episode, I just want to bring a few comments about it.
First of all, I want you to know that this episode is entirely uncut and uncensored, and it's quite a long episode. And nearing almost two hours, so you might want to take this in two bites so to speak. Um, but recently I've had some, well at least one email telling me that I should edit my episodes more, my conversations more. And, you know, I, I appreciate all feedback, and if you have anything you want to, you know, address to me, be it positive, negative, whatever, just, you know, send me an email, and I'll definitely appreciate everything that you say.
But I just had to address that the nature of the podcast is a conversational format. It's supposed to mimic real life. And so for instance, somebody said, and this is totally fair feedback, but somebody said that something I, I had said during one of the episodes was completely stupid. And honestly, that's, uh, that's fine. Uh, in fact, I make it clear quite regularly that the reason that I have such great guests on is because I'm quite ignorant and stupid myself. So when I ask about different cultures and countries, and traditions, and all these things, it's not because I'm trying to look stupid, it's genuinely because I don't know any better. So I don't want, I would hate for my podcast to have to spend eight hours every episode to edit to make myself look good or to get rid of, uh, silly situations or, you know, something like that.
So this episode is kind of a homage to the format where me and James talk in a hostel in Berlin, and with all the interruptions that you can imagine, all the technical, uh, not problems, but rustling. And, um, due to the recording on location, obviously the audio quality isn't quite as good as when you record on Skype. Um, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. David James is one of my biggest idols in the polyglot community, and I've been following him for a long time. And I recently started using his Goldlist method for Hungarian, which I'll get back to soon with a blog post telling you about my experience doing it. But please enjoy this episode with David James, who's one of my favorite of all time. And, yeah, it's uncensored, uncut, unfiltered, just like you're a fly on the wall at a, at, in Berlin. So please enjoy it, and let me know what you think in the comments on the website.
I've recorded it as well. If there's one thing I've learned through my incompetence as a sound engineer, it's have backups. Have backup systems. Okay, so um, so we're here.
All right.
That's one thing that I can say without, uh, any, um, `sans brancher`, I can say that we are here.
We're here, not there.
Yeah.
`Oder hier im Moment kann ich das sagen. Wir sind da.`
`Oder hier, hier oder da.`
`Entweder hier sind wir oder da.`
Yeah. `Mmm.`
`In Russland da.`
`Da.`
`Da.`
`Da.`
`Rochen.`
Um, but anyway, we're live from the Actual Fluency On Location Studio, and I'm here with David James, the legend. And today we're getting to know him a little bit better, and about his Goldlist method as well. So, David, for the people who don't know you, how did you get into language learning, and what was your story coming up with the Goldlist and everything? Could you take us back to the beginning?
Well, the very beginning I suppose was just basically that I, um, I, I, I listened to the Eurovision Song Contest in the good old days when, um, when, when you had to sing in your own language. At some point they decided that you weren't allowed to, or that you were allowed to sing in English. And, uh, as Alex Rawling was just saying, English tends to ruin polyglotism. But at the time, you know, I, you had to sing in your own language, so all the countries were singing in different languages, and I just loved the sound of all of these countries. You know, I was really interested to, you know, just, I suppose I might have been about seven or eight, and just kind of, uh, ignited in me a curiosity. What it's, what is it like to, instead of speaking English, which I obviously did by then, perhaps not, you know, grammatically perfectly, you know, but I was able to speak English. Actually at seven, I had a reading age of 21 in English, I would have, if I was measured. Um, um, but, uh, so I had a pretty good grasp of English.
But I was really interested in knowing what, um, what it was like to be a speaker of a different language, what that, what that experience was like, to be able to think and to speak in a different language, and to understand when somebody spoke to me. So instead of just listening to those songs, to be able to actually, um, understand them, and of course, you know, when Terry Wogan, as it was, would, would read the song's names out, you know, some of them seemed to be almost like you could work out which bit meant what. And, and, uh, you know, it was interesting, but I mean there wasn't one particular one that, um, that interested me more than the others. Um, just the whole, the whole thing of it, you know, that all those different languages, to be able to speak all of them.
Um, and, um, that, that, that's what, that's what came, but after a certain period, obviously, uh, even at eight years of age, uh, in our school, you got the opportunity to do some French. Um, and I tried to pay attention to that, and tried to imitate it, to learn the words that they were, were telling me. Um, and I suppose I was kind of like, yeah, I wasn't a particularly good student up until a certain point anyway, because I, I tended to be rather disruptive, and, uh, not very well-behaved at school. So until I was about 13 years of age. So, so I wasn't, I wouldn't say that I was particularly great, but as, as, as far as my schooling went, I, I paid probably more attention to the French than I did to most other things.
And, um, there was a little visit to France where we had, where we partnered up with these French kids and went to their homes and I, you know, I was able to say things like, "C'est, c'est mon vélo, c'est ton vélo," you know, like, uh, stuff like that, I remember saying to this other kid, he had two bikes, one for me, one for him, we were going to ride around on these bikes. So that much, you know, and learned some songs, you know, like as you do. I can still sing today some of the songs which, uh, they taught, you know, like, uh, "Alouette, gentille Alouette," you know that, uh, and actually, you know that they do this to kids, but it's, you know, I can actually still sing those songs.
And also from the same school, I'm going back to Junior school, I can still sing today "Migalead Gwyneth Gwyn," which, um, although we weren't in Wales, we were in Hemel Hempstead, which is not particularly close to Wales. Um, a lot of the teachers are Welsh, because the, the, the Welsh are kind of, they, Celts used to be the teachers of Europe, and the Welsh are no exception. Um, and, uh, and so a lot of the teachers in Hemel Hempstead were, were Welsh. And, uh, knowing that I was quarter Welsh, I took an interest in that, and in the choir that I was in, um, they, they, they, they prepared for us to sing a Welsh song. To represent, uh, Broad Street School, as it was.
And, um, and so, so my first languages that I learned were French and Welsh. Um, and Welsh a bit from my grandfather, um, French from school, a little bit from my mother. Um, I remember very much in the early days, my mother encouraging me in the way of languages because she must have kind of realized that I could do it quite well, before I knew that I was particularly good at it. I suppose she kind of like cottoned on to the fact that, you know, I could, I could, uh, pretty much impersonate the accent. I think impersonation, being able to do different accents, being able to talk like a Dane, for example, yeah. That's why I need you to make anything funny for you, but you know. But, um, but, you know, to do different accents is part of the, uh, of the, of the thing. I mean, you, you, your British English is very convincing, for example. So you know what I'm talking about.
Thank you.
Um, and, um, and, you know, uh, I she was saying to me, my mother was saying to me, um, you know, would you like to, to, to help me with my stamp collection? And so I'd be helping her do her stamp collection. She, she was a lifelong collector of stamps. And I would look at the stamps, and she would, you know, we'd be looking at the stamps and what have you and, uh, you going to collect stamps? And I said, you know what, Mother, as pieces of paper, little pieces of paper go, I didn't say it in those words, because I probably didn't have that degree of, of kind of like turn of phrase in, at that, that age. But what I think I said was tantamount to, you know, the little pieces of paper are okay, but I mean, you can collect them, you can collect the stamps. And I'll collect the words which are on the stamps, because that was what was really interesting, seeing, you know, `Magyar Posta` and things like that, and all of that stuff. Of course I didn't know that's how you pronounced it then.
But, um, but just, just to be able to look at it, and imagine and to play with the words that were on the stamps, because that was like a mini Eurovision Song Contest, but worldwide, not just Europe, you know. That was the worldwide, um, little word contest, who could make the most interesting word appear on the stamp. And of course there were different alphabets and things like that, that was mind-blowing, you know. So, uh, so, so you know, at the age of like seven or eight. So I think that, uh, that would be, you know, that the Jesuits, uh, which is not a society that I'm a member of, um, uh, the, uh, Jesuits do have this saying, uh, "Give me a child of seven, and I'll give you the man." Yeah? Uh, I, I don't know whether that was, um, Loyola, I think maybe Loyola came up with that one or or anyway, one of his other loyalty card friends. Um, terrible, even when I'm not being polyglot, I tend to make these outrageous puns.
But, um, uh, I would say that the age of seven's when I kind of first went in that direction. But it wasn't the only direction that I was pulling in at that age, because the other, my other big passion in life was, pardon, actually I can cough on my podcast. Um, but, um, the other big passion of my life was animals, and the natural world in general. I like plants, but most of all animals. And of those animals, of the animal kingdom, that's not very good, is it? I do get some of that coffee you kindly made me.
Well, don't worry about it.
I've got to make sure I drink it nice and, um, nice and, uh, nice and, uh, and quietly so that, that, that sound of making the coffee doesn't appear on the podcast. And here, here we go, make it nice and quietly. Ah, that's better.
Um, back to regular programming.
Yes, back to our regular programming. So what was I talking about?
Uh, you're talking about getting to the animal kingdom and the natural life.
Yes, that's right. That was what I was particularly interested in was like fish and birds. So I think at the age of about seven or eight, I was all about birds. And, and, um, and I was all about fish, and all the, all the other animals as well. But I could never really, and I thought I might want to be a biologist, or at least an ichthyologist, which is not an `ichthy` theologist, like somebody who turns himself into a god and then studies himself. But `ichthyeus` being fish, yes. Um, uh, so, um, I, I thought I was going to be that. Yeah, I thought I had a lovely collection of tropical fish, I'd been a fish keeper, really uninterrupted since the age of about nine years of age. Um, I had all kinds of my, my mother used to get very annoyed with me because I used to add more and more and more little tanks in and everything, and in the end she got annoyed with me and she, she chucked out my, uh, some of my fish down the toilet sometimes when they, uh, when I bred too many, you know, and I, I, I got very upset with that. But, um, but, uh, nevertheless, um, yeah, I'll probably cut that bit out, it's not very nice.
But, um, but basically, um, I thought I might want to be a biologist. The problem came eventually, so all the time I was doing, going two directions. One was the languages, the other was the, the fish, especially, you know, tropical fish. And by the time I got to be 14, I, I, I knew all the important fish studiers in the British Museum, in the universities, what have you, I knew them all. They, a lot of them have been very kind to me, and had encouraged me in the interest. And I had even written some stuff about fishkeeping. And certainly, yeah, I was quite known as a junior member of a lot of fishkeeping societies, I traveled around Britain going to fish shows and things like that. Um, more active then on the fish side than on the languages side, but the languages side was just going on the whole time as well.
Um, at school I started to do German after I, I did Latin one year, but I was the year that I, the years Latin that we had in my school was the same year as when I was really, really, really naughty. So, um, I'm, I mean, the Latin teacher really hated me, I used to disrupt all of his lessons. Um, you know, he would be trying to teach about Roman catapults, whereas I was actually making them with a comb and elastic band and a pencil. You know. So, so, so it's, um, he, he hated the fact that at the end of the year, I thought to myself, well, I've got a Latin exam coming up. And I grabbed the Latin primer, some people say `primer`, but I say `primer`. Um, and I just learned it, I thought, well, I'd better go through this and revise it. And I thought, well, I don't really know any of this, I remember he was talking about this and this and this. But instead of revising it, yeah, I basically taught myself Latin from the primer. Or `primer` or whatever you want to call it.
So, so then his exam comes, and his worst student, the one that's been the bane of his life all year, gets 97%. 97%, `ma`. Yeah. So he was really, really, really annoyed with me.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah? So, um, uh, it's, uh, so, so he actually wrote in my report for that year, "I am really annoyed that this student got 97% in my exam after being, um, so disruptive all through the year." The headmaster then in his summing up at the bottom, yeah, then then wrote in passing, "I don't know what kind of teacher writes exams so that his worst student gets 97%." The headmaster actually told him off. And in, in, in the report card, you know, so that it's absolutely amusing actually. But I thought, well, this is actually quite fun. Yeah?
But then I'd chosen to do German the year after. I didn't want to be the bane of that life's, uh, that guy's life anymore. But I started to learn German, that's when I met a really important influence on my life, I'd say, David Morgan. He's now back in the UK, but for many years, he gave up teaching shortly after teaching me. That's how much I kind of drained him, I think. Um, but I, I in this case it was actually out of interest, I could ask him questions. Um, and, and he taught me a lot of the stuff. He was a remarkably perceptive chap. He went to Lingala shortly after us to escape, um, so to Lingala, to Congo. He taught Lingala, he, he, basically, he, what he did, he went with the, the Wycliffians, they, they translate the Bible into languages where, um, which haven't had them translated before. And he was the guy on the Lingala team.
Wow.
Which is actually quite a big language in Congo. But they didn't have the, the Bible. He was doing, you know, shoe box and all that stuff and, and getting, you know, Lingala literate and getting it all, you know, in these, if you want to look up David Morgan, then just put it together with Lingala, you'll, you'll, you'll find him on the internet. Well, he was my German teacher. I don't know if he still speaks German now, he probably gets it muddled up with, with sort of Bantu languages.
But, um, but, but the, the thing is that he, he actually really did emphasize, if you want to learn a language, you got to learn it. I'm the teacher, but I'm not going to teach you. You're the one what I'm going to do is, I'm going to create conditions where you can learn from me, but you got to be the one who drives the process, you're going to have to take control of it. He actually taught this because he was a real, he was a real guy. I mean, he was a real person that was all about languages, because as you know, if you go and afterwards do fieldwork, you know, in the field with a language which doesn't even have literacy, then that, that, that means you're, you're, you know, that's where, where the wheat is separated for the, the chaff. That makes you definitely one of the more `wheatier` ones, you know?
No, teach yourself, yeah.
You've got to teach yourself. So he, he has what he was, and there was another guy as well, was the other German teacher, his name was, was Mike Smith, who was also of the same opinion. Um, I think I was more influenced by David Morgan, but Mike Smith as well, he was saying the same things. And the pair of them, they really gave me a lot of input. They were very, very good, very passionate, language-loving German teachers, and they gave me not just the German, but the, the understanding of how to go about teaching yourself a language, which I then soon afterwards started to put into practice, because I wanted to learn Russian. Um, and, uh, just like Alex was just talking about now, he found it was difficult to get, to get into it. I actually didn't, probably because of the good input that I had from those guys. Um, I found it was, I just was, was eating it.
Where did you get that inspiration from to learn Russian?
What, to learn Russian? Oh, well that's, that's interesting. It was actually 1980, and that was the year when Moscow had, well, they, they'd gone into Afghanistan, um, and everybody was up in arms about that. Um, it was the time when, you know, it was the `Protect and Survive` era where you had to build yourself a nuclear shelter under, under your toilet or something like that, yeah, and expect the four-minute warning anytime that the Russians were going to come and invade us.
The Cold War, yeah.
Yeah, the Cold War was at its peak, and, and, and people were very nervous about this. And, and, and, you know, at the same time we had the Russian, Moscow hosting the Olympic Games. Um, I was a fan, you know, of ladies gymnastics, as people are usually about the age of 14, 15, not necessarily for sporty reasons. Right. Um, but yes.
Very flexible.
Yes, that's right. Yes, yes, it's a very flexible approach to, to, to, to sport. Um, and, um, and, and I noticed that a lot of the, you know, like people like Olga Korbut and other people, you know, a lot of them were coming out of Russia. I thought, and I noticed that they tended to be pretty good-looking girls. So I thought to myself, well, that wouldn't hurt. And also the fact that that was, that they were, you know, they, it was like forbidden territory. The Cold War was at its highest, it was forbidden territory, yet you didn't, you didn't expect to even get to meet any of them. Yeah, but you wanted to be able, if you were in that situation where you ever did meet one, that you'd be able to show, you know, I mean, just ordinary Russia, which I've since have spent years and years in, yeah, um, seemed in those days, like, to us, like North Korea practically now. And of course, even North Korea doesn't have that, um, because North Korea just has a, a slightly different dialect to South Korea. So if you want to learn Korean, it's easy enough, yeah, as far as access is concerned.
Whereas there, access to real ones, I, I'll tell you this, I, I taught myself Russian from a series of teach-yourself books. I went from material to material if I didn't understand a, an explanation in one book, I'd get it from another. And the LinguaPhone, uh, which was, you know, in those days, you know, Pimsleur wasn't even invented. So, so, so, um, or if it was, and just for the first few languages. So LinguaPhone was, was, was the big thing. Nowadays, I think you can still get LinguaPhone, but it's not quite so popular. It's, it's definitely kind of got a dated ring to it, LinguaPhone. I'm sorry if anybody's, uh, big LinguaPhone fan or even with LinguaPhone listening to this, but, uh, you know, the fact is that LinguaPhone was bigger then in the, in the sort of like landscape of learning materials than it is now. They've definitely lost out to some of the ones coming along later. But, you know, there's nothing new about companies being in that situation.
But I certainly have a debt to LinguaPhone because the materials, I use LinguaPhone materials for several languages, for many years, in fact. Um, and, um, you know, it has the same problem as, as, as other things have, in that you tend to get the same scenarios coming up again and again, `a la Pimsleur`.
Or the hotel and check-in, yeah, that sort of stuff.
So, so, so, so that gave me the, gave me the accent. But I was really fortunate because Russian language and people kicked off, which was again leading up to the, to, to the Olympics. Also, people were going to be visiting Russia from England for the first time over and around the Olympics. The first actual time when I listened to Russian and decided that I wanted to learn it, I'd been a shortwave radio enthusiast as well. I used to listen to these languages without really understanding them. And there was one particular language, one particular spot on the dial where I, I liked the sound of the language very much. I wasn't sure what language it was, I thought it might be Russian, but I wasn't sure it was Russian. I thought, because I heard that language quite a lot, it was probably Russian, because, you know, it came up that with that frequency that would be right for it to be Russian and not just a, a minor language.
And I thought to myself, well, how to find out what this language is. So I went downstairs, you know, there was this at one point where, you know, that the, the presenter would, would say every so often, "Gavorit Radiostantsiya Rodina," like that, yeah. And I just went downstairs at that point from my room and said to my mother, "Gavorit Radiostantsiya Rodina." And my mother said, "Yeah, Gavorit po-russki." And of course, it turns out my mother had actually, she'd tried to learn Russian, while I was in the womb.
Okay.
Yes.
So you started early then.
Must have liked it. Because, but she didn't really manage it. I mean, she didn't really manage take it beyond that. It was just, well, during her maternity leave, as it were, from being a teacher, she, uh, she went on a Russian course, and she was doing a bit, you know, but she didn't take it very far. And I thought to myself as well, look, now, Mother, I, I'm going to show you that I can do something. I was always very competitive with my mother. Um, and, um, and, and so, you know, if you, if that's something you tried to do, but you couldn't do it, but you're interested in, in, in seeing if I can do it. Well, I'll show you that I can do it.
So I went and I got the book and, uh, actually it was a toss-up because `Aventura`, which was a good, uh, BBC, um, was also running in the, in the TV at the same time. Um, and I, and I, I was watching that in the morning. I was also watching `Nai`, `Nai Zindagi, Nai Jeevan`, which was for the, for the Asian community to try and get them, you know, to, um, to understand the country that they'd come to, you know. So this was in Hindi.
Okay.
Hindi, Urdu, kind of, Hindustani kind of thing there. Uh, so, so, so I just listened to that as well. And, uh, picked up bits of, of, of Urdu or, or Hindi from, from, from that. Um, uh, `Nai Zindagi` is new, new life, new, new way, yeah. So, so, uh, it's, it's funny how now I'm doing Farsi, and Zindagi is also Farsi. Right. This is, uh, so, so the same words from my early childhood coming up again in new languages. It's, it's interesting, but that's a by the by.
Um, but, uh, I actually went to the, I went to the, the bookshop when I'd saved up a bit of money. I was, I went to WH Smith, which was, was and is the main bookseller of England. And, um, I was planning to, to buy `Aventura` coursebook. But they didn't have it. They did have a book called `Mastering`, or no, `Russian Made Simple`, not `Mastering Russian`. `Russian Made Simple`. I bought that. Um, but it was actually too, um, you know, I, I, I started off with that one. And then I, uh, I discovered I was making progress a little bit too fast, and, uh, already, you know, still not really feeling much meat there.
I actually then bought an additional book which was `Teach Yourself Russian`, not the one they've got now, the old one by Michael Frouin. Okay. Um, it's got some mistakes in it, but, uh, didn't know that at the time. Uh, it just seemed like a brilliant book, the way that it took through the language and it is a, it was a very, very well-constructed, almost a model for constructing a, a course the way it should be done, really. And it's a pity that `Teach Yourself` have dumbed down all of their courses. They used to be really very good. But you can still get them if you look on Amazon, you know, secondary market on, on Amazon. You can still get them from time to time. So,
So they were simply too basic, or what did they not go in too much in depth?
Which one, the `Russian Made Simple`?
No, the new one.
Oh, the new ones? Well, it's all, it's, it's, it's, well, there's, there's a definite, I'm not sure that I, I would say this, just like O-levels, yeah, which we used to have when I was a lad. Right. Yes, um, they, they, they used to have 2000, about 2000 words. Right. And now it's gone to GCSEs. And if you look at the GCSE, um, if you look at the GCSE vocabulary lists that are available online, they almost invariably tend to have about 1200 words. Okay. Yeah. So, as you can see, between 2000 words and 1200 words, you might say, well, that's not a very big difference, because you're still going to come, but also there are a couple of big major grammar points, like, things like pluperfect. Yeah.
I mean, you don't get on to, um, if, if we take, for example, French as, as an example, you don't really start dealing with the subjunctive anyway at O-level, and you don't really start dealing with, um, with, um, uh, `passé simple`, you know, the past historic. You don't, you don't deal with that anyway, or didn't deal with that anyway at O-level. Um, but, uh, but anything like `j'aurais dû`, yeah, like a past conditional, you'd certainly already have, have covered at O-level. Um, or `j'avais`, `j'avais été`, I had been, yes. Um, uh, you would certainly have covered that at O-level. I remember covering that at O-level, and 2000, about 2000 words of vocabulary. Yeah. And then you don't have those two cases at GCSE usually. Right. Yeah.
Um, you tend to have a lot of getting around the language by using kind of like contextual adverbial phrases of time to kind of. Okay. Make, make up for the differences. And you tend to have only 1200 words of vocabulary, which, obviously, as long as it's frequentative, you might say, well, okay, 1200 words of the most frequent vocabulary is going to carry you quite a long way. Right. Yeah, it's, it's, it's an argument. Um, but, um, there is, but it's also a different level of work, yeah. A different, a different level of, of preparation.
And I think that the difference between the old, uh, `Teach Yourself` book, the O-level `Teach Yourself` books had roughly that, they used to have about 2000 words, and the, the book which I'm talking about, the Michael Frouin book, um, had 2000 words in. Right. Yeah. And if you look at a modern `Teach Yourself` book, they tend to have, well, they tend to have more like that kind of level of 1200 words. Right. If you now look at Colloquial, which is the Routledge, or Routledge, I don't know how people say it.
I don't know.
Um, yeah, call myself a polyglot, I don't know even how to pronounce the prime, the prime other, others are available, but for me, the prime publisher of, of English language textbooks in foreign languages now probably, probably is this Routledge or Routledge. Um, because I'm, I'm tempted by their products. Right. Um, and, and they kind of make sense. Um, and, and the Colloquial, like for example, I've got Colloquial Farsi, I did, I did, you know, me, and I'm always counting things. Yeah. So, so, uh, so I did a, I did a, there's 2000 in there.
Oh, really?
Yeah, which is good. So, so, so, uh, so that's, that's pretty good. Um, yesterday, um, I, I, I bought a German book of, uh, vocabulary builder that takes another, that will add another 3000. So, so, so that's my, that's, I've got my work cut out for me now in terms of vocabulary, because I discovered that that's the biggest, the biggest issue is to really build a lot, a lot, a decent-sized vocabulary. Right. And, uh, you know, grammar, this is Gareth, was it Gareth? Gareth, uh, said this, um, Dr. Popkins. Yes. Um, uh, he's probably already on one of your podcasts.
No, not yet.
Oh, you have to get him on this. He's brilliant. Yeah.
He was a, he was a small guest on a segment in one, but I haven't had the chance to sit down with him for a full episode.
Oh, do, do, do. He's a, he's a clever guy. Yes. He's Gareth. So, so, so he, he was, he was saying, uh, yesterday, and I can't remember why I brought Gareth up now.
It was the grammar versus vocabulary.
Yeah, he says grammar comes to an end. Yeah. Which yeah. Which, which is, which is it's, it's remarkable. I, I kind of it was amazing when I, I heard him say that, because actually I've said that, I hope he wasn't taking it from me, but, uh, but I, I'm sure I've said that before that grammar comes to an end as well. In exactly the same way. Well, I'm sure he came to it, to it, to that conclusion quite independently from me. He has all the, the apparatus to have done so anyway. So, so I'm sure he did. But, but, but a lot of, a lot of us, I'm sure, come to the same conclusion. Grammar's not that big of a deal. Right. Yeah.
So, so grammar, that if you, if you do like, uh, um, let's say 40 pages of, of, of an exercise book going through writing out the big grammar stuff, anything further than that is probably related to specific words anyway. Right. So then when you, when you're doing a word, let's say you're doing a word in, let's say you're doing German, so you, you write a `Hauptwort` or a noun, yeah, you're going to write `der, die, das` next to it, or just masculine, feminine, neuter next to it. Yeah. If, if you're doing, um, your lovely language, Danish, you're going to write whether it's common case or, uh, or out of space case or whatever it is.
Neuter.
Neuter or `utrum`, yeah, neuter or.
Yeah, I think they call it neuter, yeah.
Yeah, but neuter, neuter and `utrum`. We call it `neutrum` and `utrum` or something. Yes.
Yes, exactly, yeah. It's basically neutral gender and no gender.
Neutral gender, no gender.
`Indikern` and.
It sums up the youth of today, really. I'm sorry, I'm going to cut that bit out as well. But, um, but, but basically, uh, yeah. Um, you, you'd write down what it was, yes. Right. So you write `hus et`, yeah? `Bil en`, yeah? Uh, and so, so you, you don't get the `loft et`, is it?
That's true.
Yeah, you write.
That's very true.
You write them together, yeah? So, so, and then when you come to, to like, uh, putting a verb down, yeah? You, you don't just think if, if it's a, if it's, you know, `telefonier`, you don't have to worry about it, because you know that these modern ones are all soft. Right. Yeah. But if you come to like, uh, `swimmer`, `swimmer`, `swam`, `swomen`, yes, yeah, yeah, uh, uh, yeah, `jeg har svømmet`, `swimmer`. Okay, right, yeah. So, but in a sense, in Danish, it doesn't matter so much because whatever you say, it's going to sound the same when you actually say it. Right.
But, um, but, um, um, that's how you'd learn it. Yeah, you, you, you, you put three spaces down. You don't have to worry about conjugating it in Danish. Right. But you'd want to put the, you'd want to, if you've got a, a strong verb, you'd stick down here, the verb is strong. You'd have, you'd have present, um, you'd have simple past, and you'd have compound and past participle. Um, all, all, um, all, uh, you know, next to each other, and learn them together. Right. Yeah. Um, and that's how you put them into a vocabulary book, yeah, like the Goldlist method, which I think we're going to come on to in due course. Yes.
So, so that's, that's basically, um, But isn't it also that, that, that's the big part of it, yeah, because that's the, the, the big part of it is actually the vocabulary. And then and, and then together with the vocabulary, the grammar, specifically linking to that vocabulary. Right. Article. In English, for example, when you learn an adjective, you might want to consider whether that adjective can be put into its degrees, you know, comparative and superlative degree, yeah. The superlative degree is the most superlative of all of the degrees. So, um, uh, you need to know whether you, you can say, you can't say, for example, that something is the `superlativist`. Right. Yes. Um, but that's quite clear because, I mean, `superlative`s got four syllables, and you won't find that many four-syllable adjectives which, which you, you can still put `est` on the end and not sound like you're making a joke. Right. Yeah.
So, uh, so, uh, and then you've got the, the small ones like, um, easy, yeah? Easier, more easily, and what have you. Yes. Uh, but it can cause problems if you don't learn it properly. Right. It can cause problems. I mean, even somebody with very competent English, um, almost native English, um, who's giving a lecture earlier, um, in this conference, did make that mistake. So, used the wrong degree, um, with, um, an adverb or an adjective in English, and the way around it is to actually, when you learn the adjective, learn the degrees with it. Right. If it's going to be an issue in that language.
In German, it's less of an issue because even if something's really long, you can put `est` on the end, or `est` uh, on the end and still make it, and they, they're not so bothered about it. But in English, if you, because there's more diglossy between the, the, the, the romance way of doing things and the Germanic way of doing things, it, it, it kind of matters. Yeah, it, it, it kind of makes you sound silly if you, if you used the wrong form of, of degree in the, in, in the adjective. So, so if you're doing English, that's what you'd want to, to focus on, whereas if you were doing German, you might say, okay, that's all right, as long as I've got `gut, besser, best`, yeah, then I'm all right, because the rest, the rest of them, even `schlimm`, yeah, `schlimm`, `schlimmer`, `schlimmste`, and you have, uh, `der, der, dolich, versta` or something, how do you have.
Yeah, `øh`, `dårlig`, `dårligere`, `værst`, yeah, `værst`, yeah. Okay.
They're kind of strange actually.
But Danish language is very strange.
Yeah, but a lot of, a lot of, um, languages, the words for good and bad have got irregular, um, degrees, yeah.
Yeah, English as well.
And, and, and even what you said `yoll` or `yor`.
`Yor`, uh, `lægdåb` and `ændelig`.
You're a big, yeah, you're a big, political party. Yeah. But, uh, but the, um, other political parties are available. But, um, um, the, um, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the Slavic languages, yes. Right. You have `harasho`, `haroshi`, yeah? `Lutsiy`, yeah? `Samaya lutsiy` or `naylutsiy`, yeah? And it doesn't sound anything like `haroshi`. Right. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and in, in Polish you've got the same, even though you don't have `haroshi`, you, you have, you have `dobry`. Yeah. But you've still got `lepy`. Oh, yeah. Which is sounds a bit like `lutsiy`, but it's related to a South Slavic word `lepi`, which is, which is, uh, beautiful. Yeah. In South Slav, yeah. `Nash yezik ye vrlo lep`, yeah. It's the Serbo-Croatian as it used to be, when I learned it. Uh, speakers say `lep`. `Hvala`, `lepi`, `lepi` is a, the Croatian. So, `pretty thank you`, yeah, `bitte schön`, yeah, or `danke schön`, yeah. I don't know why, why thanks and pleases have to be pretty. Yeah. You can even say in English, `pretty please`, yeah.
Hungarian. Yeah.
Thank you beautifully. `Nagyon szépen`. Oh, it's `szépen`, yeah.
`Köszönöm szépen`.
`Köszönöm szépen`. It's funny, isn't it really?
Yeah.
You say, beautiful.
`Beautiful city`, yeah. `Thank you beautifully`.
Yes, if any of, if, if the listeners know why, please write to us, thank you. Thank you is a beautiful, please, please give your theories in the comments below. We'll give them all due attention.
Yeah, please write to the show at, um, we don't have an address. `Buzi Studios`. Whatever they used to say.
Yes, the thumbs up anyway. London N1. Yes. M1. I don't know.
I don't know.
W1, I guess. I wanted to.
You can have W1, yes.
I wanted to also comment a little bit on the, uh, grammar versus vocabulary, because I, when I started learning my first independent foreign language, I was also very focused on grammar, and I thought it was very important. And it's only in the last year or so that I really realized that if you're learning a language mainly for communication reasons, which I guess is a big reason for many people, it's very rare that grammar is preventing comprehension.
Yes, that's absolutely true.
Whereas vocabulary is almost certainly going to prevent comprehension.
Yeah.
If you don't know a word, sometimes you can explain your way out of it. But if you just learning a word, if you're just learning a language, it's very hard to explain it around a word if you don't know it. That's very clear.
Well, that's right, yeah. I mean, a friend of mine, um, still a friend, still today, but this, this happened something like two, three or four years ago. It was driving in the car and he was using the opportunity to really learn English. This was in Poland. And he said, you know, my, my, one of my teachers says, you don't really need to learn a lot of vocabulary. Um, focus on the grammar, don't worry too much about learning a lot of vocabulary. Just have a bit, but get the, get the grammar right. And I said, why does your teacher think that? Because she says, you, you can work it out by context. Most of the time. I said, you know what? I think your teacher is an imbecile. Do you know that word means.
Take that out of context.
And, and, and, and he said, what do you mean? You think my teacher is like a genius or something? No, quite the opposite.
But you see, it's a great illustration. If you don't know the word.
Exactly, yeah.
Exactly.
If you don't know the word.
Well, the way to find out the Russian convention for, um, for using Cyrillics to, to, to, to handle Scandinavian words is, is, is that exactly Google Maps. If you take the Google Maps and then you go to somewhere like `Yeniship` or whatever it might be. Yeah. And you see it, yeah. Yeah. And then you, you actually see how, how, how they're going to, how they're going to actually put that into, into Cyrillics. Yeah. And usually it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be pretty phonetic. Yeah. They write things phonetically, especially when we're Serbians, or, Serbian will, will do it, um, phonetically, but also the way in which they, they, they regard it can differ between one Cyrillic-using language and another. Yeah. So if you, if you, uh, quite often the fact that the, the ammunition that they've got differs because some, some of the word, some of the letters of Russian don't appear, the closest is Bulgarian to, to, um, to, uh, to, uh, to Russian. But even they, you've got `tviordiy znak`. Right. The hard sign. The hard sign, yeah. Is, is, is, is actually a full vowel in Bulgarian. Yeah. So, so it's, it's just like an, uh. Yeah. Like `unstressed` `a` or `o` in Russian is, is still shows you its historical look, you know, in, in, in, in Bulgarian you've just got that hard sign in there. I didn't know that. It's got a full vowel, it's not just a hard sign. Right. Which is why if you look at Bulgarian, even Bulgarian, even Bulgaria, the second letter of it is the hard sign. So, so it's, it's a. Yeah. You use that much more. Yeah, it's, it's, it's used, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's used an awful lot more, yeah. So, when you look at, so if you look at the, if you look at the Google Map in Cyrillics, you're not just looking at a Google Map in Cyrillics, you're looking at a specific convention for looking at, let's say, Danish town names or what have you that'll, that'll apply in Russian if you're looking in Russian. But then if you turn it to Bulgarian, it would be something else as well. Right. Even though it's Cyrillics the whole time, yeah. Right. Because they have a different understanding of the sounds involved.
Yeah.
Well, that's right. And again, between, between Farsi and, and, uh, and and Arabic, yeah. Uh, Farsi tends to be pretty religious about, um, about anything which comes from Arabic and is, and is related to religion, then it gets pretty faithfully translated into Farsi, from what I can, and don't anybody think I'm an expert on this because I'm just beginning, but I, I took an interest in this and tried to work out how, how, how, how this is with, with, with Farsi, and this is what I, I found out that, you know, things from Arabic get translated into, transliterated into Farsi fairly faithfully. So that Arabic place names will probably be transliterated across into Farsi, fairly, fairly, uh, much the same as they are in Arabic. So they're going to look the same. But as soon as you then get into a non-Arabic place, then those place names, for example, if you were to look at Farsi Google Maps, yeah, of, of a Danish place name, you're going to see that it, in Farsi, they're going to look different to the way they get, look different in Arabic. There's going to be differences in that even though you say, well, they're both using Arabic, they've got different take on it. Yeah. So, so that's interesting. So that's, so, so this whole phonology is one level. And you don't even need the language for it. Right. Yeah.
Um, and, and, listening to the sounds of the language. I was, I call it audio front-loading, you know, in Goldlist method, um, you obviously it's a written method, yeah. So, so before you do that, you need to have developed an inner voice. I don't really recommend it unless somebody knows roughly how the language sounds, and already has an inner voice for the language. I don't recommend going in raw into, into fully blown Goldlist. Right. I mean, for myself now I'm using Goldlist in pretty early on. But I will have done, you know, a Michelle Thomas or a Paul Noble course. I mean, there's not many Paul Noble courses, there aren't that many Michelle Thomas courses. Um, there's quite a few more Pimsleur courses, but even they don't go for everything you might want to learn. But that's where I'd start, the audio only. Right.
And if I haven't got one of those three, uh, mentioned, above mentioned courses, well, then I'd go into, um, into, into, into some, trying to find something locally made. I mean, Bulgarian doesn't even have a Pimsleur, but I found a decent Bulgarian, um, uh, audio only course, um, which I listened to for a bit, but I didn't take Bulgarian too seriously because I was just going there for a short project and I never really needed it other than that and wasn't particularly bothered about having. I don't need to learn every language. Because I found that with Bulgarian, for example, if you know a few Slavic languages, you go to Bulgaria, as long as you know roughly how it works, and you know what to expect, that it's got the, the, the, the definite article tucked on the end and things like that, and it doesn't have all the cases, and it doesn't have all the tenses the same. So, you know, you tend to be able to follow it quite easily. Right. Yeah. Um, so, so, so I didn't, I didn't take, take Bulgarian learning very seriously, but I have got that course anyway, just in case I ever need it.
Um, but in the main, audio front-loading, that's the thing. So then you get your inner voice, you know how the language is supposed to sound. And then you can start to impersonate it, and you get your mouth in the right shape to make it. Yeah. Which is very important. Right. Yeah. Um, because you've done all the repeat after me stuff which happens in Pimsleur. Or, okay, you know how to say that, and you know how to say that. So, um, now say this, which means you take a bit of the first, a bit of the second, stick them together, and, uh, and you've got a new sentence. Yeah. Um, and you've got to say it, yes. If, if, uh, so I, I'm more in favor of, you know, doing it by the rules, using the pause button as I say in everything. Um, and you'll get a lot out of that right at the beginning before you've even looked at the writing system. It's really a good idea to have done, like, like a, a full Pimsleur course, more than one of them. You know, you could have done, you could do Michael Thomas first, and then do, or Michelle Thomas, then do the Pimsleur, and if you've got more than one Pimsleur, do the lot. Do, do whatever audio only you can get your hands on. Yeah. Just really get that impression of the language. Right. Yeah.
Um, I don't, I don't even pretend to believe too much in, in this left brain, right brain business. And I'm not intending anytime soon to break anyone's head open and start messing about inside of it. But, uh, but, uh, people say, you know, different skills balanced together is, is a good thing for the mind. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really, I don't know, it's fine. It's nothing. There's nothing I said that was particularly, you know, I, I can, I can, I for me, that was actually quite tame. So, uh, So you've done well this time. No, but, no, but seriously, thank you. I really love your material. We, we didn't do any hooligan, so, but the advantage is if you like, we do it separately. We've got that. We've got that, uh, for, uh, you got the 10 minute bit. Yes. And I also I was thinking we have, we could save that for another. Yeah, good times. We can do that with no one specifically for Russian learning with him if you want. Oh, yeah. Or something where he goes on about how, how language learning is all wrong under the European common framework. Well, I'm just going to start this now, but thank you so much for, for that. That was amazing. Thank you so much for listening to the Actual Fluency podcast. If you want to come on to the podcast and share your language learning story, don't hesitate to apply on actualfluency.com/guest. See you in the next one.